Sundsvall Arts Center & Theater

The driving force in theater design is flexibility. This complicated and extremely expensive building type often leads to long design processes, during which the chosen form must enable big changes in dimension, shape, and potentially even the whole program. The challenge in designing a successful theater project is creating architecture, which won’t lose its edge even when major changes occur.

Sundsvall’s strong history as a shipping and trading town is well present both in the city center and at the competition site. The tradition will continue as the new landmark project will become a trading center for culture for the whole region. The historical site is transformed into a place where entertainment, knowledge and culture are distributed by the people for the people.

In our competition entry, the building is placed on the site with one generous move. A fluid non-generic form defines the edge of the building. It is flexible for changes and while it suggests a building with a cultural function it remains stress-free, even funny. No more than the necessary façade interference is made to connect the new building to the existing Kulturmagasinet cultural center. Meanwhile, on the inside the functional contact will be as intense as possible. The grid structure of the Old Town, the Stenstaden, along with its rich collection of buildings, is a key part of the identity of Sundsvall. The presence of the grid cannot be ignored here, in one of the most important locations of the city. The coordinates of the city are articulated on top of the building where the volumes of the various spaces within are recognizable. Each space is allowed the height it needs resulting into a village-like scenery of rooftops. In the plan, the freedom of a blob and the effectiveness of a grid collide to create a new border for the city.